my engine builder appears to have come out of hibernation and has started work on my second engine. I have had WLDR cams in back order for ever, and still no sign or delivery date from any source.

So, I am urgently looking for a set of WLDR or failing that, KNS cams. I've discussed the Enfield Racing cam lobes with him and he won't hear of it, so that's the end of that matter. Fitting cam lobes in that fashion isn't the done thing over here, in the same way that sleeving cylinders sends Americans into a frenzy but British engine builders do it all the time.

I've tried to contact KNS several times over time to establish the shipping costs, with no reply, so no idea how to progress that.

It doesn''t help that the whole project has repeatedly stalled due to my protracted absences overseas in the past two or three years.

So, cams wanted. Any offers welcomed. I'm expecting to be home for 10 or 12 weeks in Jan to March and want to push the whole project to the stage of a running machine.

Shoot, a man could have a good weekend in Dallas with all that stuff...

It's an exciting time when one finally gets the attention of their builder, so I can share your enthusiasm!

I'm miffed by your comment about Americans not sleeving cylinders? It's the normal means of restoring an otherwise worn out cylinder.

Regarding your cam needs, wish I could help, but alas nothing to offer.

Regarding press-on lobes, I can't imagine a builder rejecting the ability to independently control cam timing of each cam. I would think a builder would embrace rather than reject this extra degree of freedom. Press-on welded lobes have been employed by the factory on XRs forever (30+ years). If you have your existing cams ground and it ends up you don't like the way they time out, you're stuck, as you have no ability to independently control timing of each cam. With press-on lobes no such problem exists.

Order some lobes from Enfield or Lieneweber, tell the builder this is the only existing option that will fit your timeline, and get on with it. If it's good enough for the factory racers it should be good enough for your builder. Good luck!

As an addendum to the previous post, I just went through the process of dialing in press on cams from Enfield racing last Spring. It was simple and straight forward. Once the lobes are pressed on the shaft, there is just enough resistance to rotations on the shaft that they stay put when positioned, but can be easily rotated with say a crescent wrench to a high degree of accuracy. I then had my welder tack the lobes in 3 spots, did it in 5 minutes. On the sleeveing of cylinders, I did a pair of 13 fin 80 cylinders 35 years ago. The flange separated from the sleeve in about 3 months on one, and the other has served flawlessly for 35 years. There just wasn't enough material for the flange to maintain integrity with the rest of the cylinder. DD

I suspect that the differing attitudes to sleeving of cylinders ( which was much discussed in a thread a while ago ) is related to the fact that UK tuners and builders have a long-standing practice of increasing engine capacity by increasing the bore, whereas stroking is not usual. This is in turn, because many British designs of the 40s, 50s and 60s are designed to be used in this way ( typically 350cc and 500cc, or 500cc and 650cc versions of the same engine ) or have well-established 650cc - 750cc conversions ( Morgo et al ).

Regarding cams, welding cams that way has probably never become accepted here because there are other ways of achieving the same thing. Norton and Velocette had a vernier adjustment system on the single-cylinder engines most likely to be subject of such attentions. At least one current tuner has developed a similar syatem for the BSA Gold Star. Many British twin-cylinder engines had cam drive gears which were pressed onto tapers and retained by nuts, so no welding is involved; the problem being to fit the drive gear accurately in the first place, a job which is done with the camshaft already in the engine. The four-cam style design used on the WR, KR and XR is not usual on British singles, and since virtually all designs since the 30s use solid, rather than roller, followers minor adjustments can be made by stoning the follower shoes, again a simple dismantling and reassembly procedure.

As has been remarked above, getting the attention of engine builders is an arbitrary process, and from long experience the chances of getting them to do something they are not accustomed to is zero or somewhat less.

Shoot, a man could have a good weekend in Dallas with all that stuff...

Let me give you a bit of history regarding the KR cam lobes I manufacture.The concept was actually developed by Jerry Branch in the 1950’s developing the KR engines. Because of manufacturing tolerances he found that you could not take a set of cams that was correctly timed for 1 engine and put them in another and still have the same timing. This concept is still being used on the GNC XR750 engines today.When I first started racing my 500 single Enfields, using very radical cams (.475” lift) from a very well known cam grinder. I blew up every where I went for about the first 3 years. After talking to several cam grinders the problem was that they did not know exactly what the timing is in relation to the cam gears. I’m running very tight piston to valve clearance (.035” but you don’t have to worry about that on a flathead). I finally saw a set of Goldstar cams from Keith Johnson which the gears were pressed on. This was the answer! I made some for my Enfields and since that time they have been beating Goldstars and KR’s without valve problems.

My solution for the Harleys is a press fit and tack weld which allows them to be adjusted easier than the press only I use on my Enfields. This concept and or my cam lobes are on virtually of all the winning Harleys in vintage racing in the US.

Concerning the actual cam profiles. While I have not measured the WLDR cams they did come before the WR and are probably not as hot a profile. The flat tappet WR is really not a very hot cam. While it was a hot cam for that period of time the later KHK profile has more lift and better timing and it was basically a street engine.

As DR. Dick said it is quite easy. If your builder is capable of adjusting the timing with a vernier type system he can do this. The welds are only insurance that the timing does not change.

KH cams are also fairly mild cams, advancing the intakes naturally opens the intakes early and will affect higher rpm power . I've done this with k+n regrinds and the degreeing specs were very close to early Siftons, its hit or miss but you may be pleasantly surprised, Tim

On this forum Jeff also posted Measured @ .010" valve lift KHK lift = .375" int. open 38º btc close 57º abc exh. open 57º bbc close 34º atc Note; If you advance the intake by 1 tooth it will open at 59º btc, a figure which Sifton claimed added 4 hp.

Even with the numbers it can be hard to talk cams since the opening and closing numbers tell you essentially nothing about the lobe shape or duration at various lifts.

I'm suspect of the alleged HP gain, since the KHK cam is a fairly modest duration cam to start with (240 deg @ 0.050"), having a reported IN closing of 57 deg ABDC, and advancing it one tooth (20 deg) would move the IN closing to 37 deg ABDC, which seems way to early and way out of range for anything that you expect to spin up a little bit (not that these are high rpm engines to begin with). Advancing the cams 20 deg is a pretty radical change and would move both the torque and HP peaks to lower rpm as well as limit the top end rpm compared to the stock KHK set-up.

Was the intent to advance only the IN or was the entire valve train advanced 20 deg?

The KHK and 1954 KR cams are reported to be one and the same, and the timing events associated with the KR cams, having IN opening and closing of 37 and 64 respectively makes sense, where the cams were slightly retarded in the KR engine (IN closing moved from 57 deg to 64 deg) to favor higher rpm. The KHK employed the slightly more conservative IN closing of 57 deg, to develop torque at lower rpm as well as to limit the maximum RPM of the long stroke KHK. Closing the IN at 37 seems way out of whack. If anyone understands the 37 deg IN closing, please help me understand.

As a side note, front to rear cylinder cam timing (opening/closing and centerlines) of K model cams (and likely for the iron head Sporties) can vary by 5-10 degrees (probably attributable to variations in cam gear pitch dia/gear lash and cam manufacturing tolerance), so the opening/closing numbers are not absolute and there certainly is some degree of slop in all such measurements.

Last edited by WZ507 on Wed Dec 28, 2011 10:39 pm, edited 1 time in total.

in the kh the valve/tappet clearance is 6thou in and 10 thou ex . whereas in the wl it is 4-5 hou in and 6-7 thou ex , any recomendations on settings for kh cams in a wl ? . have tried both settings and apart from slightly more noise at the kh settings , no descernible differance was foundregards jib

Dude, check out that jibhead, he's crazy. Hasn't been sober for 40 years

The KHK cams I've seen have very short ramps on them (especially the closing side, where the ramp is almost non-existent) and I would therefore lash them as tight as possible to recruit the maximum amount of opening/closing ramp, which will be the kindest setting possible on the valve train. With respect to lash affecting performance, as you noted, it would not be discernable over the range you've given. If it was my bike I'd go for a maximum hot/running lash setting of 0.004" to 0.005" on both valves. You'd have to experiment and figure out what cold lash setting that translates to.